Little Antimicrobial Peptides with Big Therapeutic Roles

摘要

Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) are short amphipathic biological molecules generallywith less than 100 amino acids. AMPs not only present high bioactivities against bacteria, fungi orprotists-induced infections, but also play important roles in anticancer activity, immune responseand inflammation regulation. AMPs are classified as ribosomally synthesized, non-ribosomallysynthesized and post-translationally modified, non-ribosomally synthesized ones and severalsynthetic or semisynthetic peptides according to their synthesis with or without the involvement ofribosomes. The molecular characterization and bioactivity action mechanisms are summarized forseveral ribosomally synthesized AMPs and main non-ribosomally synthesized members(cyclopeptides, lipopeptides, glycopeptides, lipoglycopeptides). We also analyze challenges andnew strategies to overcome drug resistance and application limitations for AMP discovery. Inconclusion, the growing novel small molecular AMPs have huge therapeutic potentials ofantibacterial, antiviral, anticancer and immunoregulatory bioactivities through new techniquesdrivendrug discovery strategy including bioinformatics prediction, de novo rational design andbiosynthesis.